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When you get deepish into the playoffs coaches sometimes need to find extreme ways to send a message to their teams after bad performances so that they can hopefully snap out of it and rebound with a win in their next game.
Nuggets coach Michael Malone did just that after Wednesday night’s Game 2 blowout, 123-98, loss to the Suns that put them in a 2-0 hole as the series shifts back to Denver for the next two games.
The 49-year-old coach who is in his sixth season with Denver put on an absolute clinic in his postgame interview, hitting all the marks and using all the right buzz words to get personal with his team.
Check out this strong quote from Malone, as he used the “Q” word to describe the effort from his guys:
“I felt we quit tonight, which is something you never want to see. So I guess for Game 3, I’m just going to try to find guys that will at least go out there and leave it all on the line. I may have a hard time coming up with five guys that fill that, but these two games, these second halves have really been disappointing, and that’s an understatement.”
I mean, that is a classic coaching move right there – trying to light a fire under your team by saying the one word none of them want to hear.
Malone then went on and dropped the “E” word on his guys:
“I saw one team that wanted to be here, that played with a purpose and urgency, and one team that did not want to be here and played with no urgency. And that’s why we got our ass kicked. … We had a lot of guys play really bad tonight. And then we allowed the impact of not making the shot to affect the other end, and it was really — this was just an embarrassing performance all the way around, top to bottom.”
He didn’t stop there, though:
“This was an embarrassing performance from myself all the way through the last player. We’re walking out of here with our heads held down, rightfully so. And there’s a reason that their crowd is yelling ‘Suns in 4!’ and they’re calling for a sweep. Because if we play like this back in Denver, this is going to be a really quick series.”
Pro move there, putting some of the blame on himself, too. We’ve seen that method used a number of times by angry coaches in the past.
And then there was this closer:
“And you can’t use, ‘Hey, we’re going home for Game 3,’ as something you can rely upon. We have a great crowd, but if we play like this, they’re going to boo us off the court, and rightfully so.”
Man, Malone held nothing back and rightly so – the Nuggets were terrible in Game 3.
It will be interesting to see if any of these comments will light the fire under his guys that Malone was so desperately trying to light.
If they don’t, Denver could be going on vacation in just a matter of days.
Quick hits: Mets announcer destroys MLB… Why LeBron James is changing his jersey number… Riley fined over LeBron… And more.
– Mets announcer Gary Cohen calmly crushed MLB over a “pathetic” instant replay ruling and fans absolutely loved it.
– LeBron James announced Wednesday that he’s going back to wearing No. 6 next season with the Lakers. Here’s why.
– Speaking of LeBron, Pat Riley got fined by the NBA for what he had to say about his former player.
– Mariners left fielder Jake Fraley made the most amazing catch of a would-be game-winning home run. You need to see this.
– Mary Clarke looks at the 9 games we’re most excited to see at E3 2021.
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